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Nascar and Racing

After Crash, Tony Stewart Roars Back at Daytona for Nationwide Series Win

Posted Feb 14, 2009 6:44PM By Geoffrey Miller (RSS feed)

Filed Under: Kyle Busch, Tony Stewart, Nationwide Series

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DAYTONA BEACH, FLA. -- Off the track Saturday morning at Daytona International Speedway, Tony Stewart was livid.

But following his first victory of 2009 during the Camping World 300 Nationwide Series race at the Florida track, Stewart's spirits seem to have changed.

"I was so frustrated this morning that I couldn't even see straight," said Stewart after the race, talking about how a blown tire on his teammate Ryan Newman's car caught both of his Stewart-Haas Chevrolets in a crash during final practice for tomorrow.

"This was the perfect thing to get it out of my mind."

But "it" nearly didn't happen.

A last lap charge by Stewart's now-former teammate on the Sprint Cup side, Kyle Busch, nearly sent Stewart's Hendrick Motorsports No. 80 Chevrolet slamming into the wall in the final corner. As the pair of cars entered the corner from Daytona's backstretch just ahead of pack of following contenders, Busch pounded the back bumper of Stewart's car.

The momentum shot both Stewart's No. 80 and Busch's No. 18 four car lengths ahead of the pack, but Busch remained firmly planted in the rear end of Stewart's Chevrolet. Stewart's car ran up the track, but Busch was unable to steer his car underneath Stewart's and lost a touch of momentum.

"I can promise you I was still in shock, I guess, to a certain degree, that I hadn't got passed on the inside. The spotter cleared me. I couldn't that he said clear on the exit of four," said Stewart.

Busch, apparently, couldn't believe that his second attempt in two days at a last-lap pass for the win at DIS didn't work out. After the last-lap scramble left him with a 4th-place finish, he parked his car on pit road and made a beeline to his motorhome without talking to reporters.

Stewart was just pleased to not bring home another wrecked race car after the dash to the finish line left Carl Edwards second and Clint Bowyer third.

"If he would have crashed us, I can guarantee you I would have been upset," said Stewart of Busch's last lap attempt. "The thing that Kyle did that I want to make sure everybody understands, Kyle didn't wreck me. He didn't try to wreck me."



Crashes in general weren't the tone of the day at DIS in an unusually clean Saturday race.

The largest incident happened at the entrance to turn three after Jason Leffler got into the rear of Steven Wallace. Wallace spun down the track, then back up the banking for a head-on impact that collected Penske Racing's Justin Allgaier and Scott Lagasse Jr. Incredibly, NASCAR deemed Leffler's move "aggressive driving" and penalized him for five laps.

Mike Bliss also got tangled up in a crash along the tri-oval after getting turned into the grass in the lead pack. Bliss fortunately missed several cars around him but Michael Waltrip couldn't quite sneak by and got the side of his No. 99 Toyota ripped off.

Roush Fenway Racing's Matt Kenseth looked quite strong early in leading 15 laps, but wound up finishing 10th.

Tags: Daytona, Daytona500, FanHouseinDaytona, HendrickMotorsports, KyleBusch, NationwideSeries, RyanNewman, TonyStewart

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